Univision 41 Sets TV Ratings Record In NYC.

Univision 41 (WXTV), set a number of new records for Spanish-language TV viewing in New York last week. Univision 41 set a new record for total day viewing, average weekly viewing, and its breakfast show, “Despierta America,” hit a new all time weekly ratings high.

Last week, November 12 through 16, 2001, Univision 41 scored a 2.9/7 weekday average sign-on to sign-off (6 am to 2 am) Nielsen Station Index (NSI) rating/share. That’s not only a record high for Univision 41, but also the highest weekly average in the history of Spanish-language television in New York. It was high enough for Univision 41 to finish fourth in the New York TV market, its highest weekly rank ever among New York’s ten major TV stations. It’s also a 107 percent increase over Univision 41’s 1.4/3 NSI score for the comparable week (November 13 – 17, 2000) a year ago.

The highest rated day last week for Univision 41 was Tuesday, November 13, the day after the crash of an American Air Lines plane bound from New York to Santo Domingo. On Tuesday, Univision 41 scored a sign-on to sign-off average of 3.3/6 NSI, both the highest single-day rating in its history and in the history of Spanish-language TV here. Dominicans, at 549,000 residents in the New York area according to the 2000 US Census, are the fastest growing component of the area’s burgeoning Hispanic population. Univision 41 has long based a local news correspondent, Napoleon De La Cruz, in the Dominican Republic. He fed many live news reports to Univision 41 last week. The previous, single-day all-time high for Univision 41 is September 11, 2001, when it scored 3.2/6 NSI as one of only two major New York stations still on the air in the immediate aftermath of the World Trade Center attack.

In addition, the Univision breakfast news program, “Despierta America” (Wake Up, America), seen weekdays from 7 am to 10 am scored a record high weekly rating of 2.6/8 NSI locally last week to beat both the “CBS Early Show” on WCBS/2 (0.9/3, 7 am to 9 am) and the venerable “Good Day New York” on WNYW/5 (2.4/7, 7 am to 9 am). That’s a 333% increase over the 0.6/2 “Despierta America” scored locally for the comparable week a year ago (November 13-17, 2000).

Other Univision 41 News programs have also scored huge ratings increases last week over the comparable year ago week: They include “Noticias 41 al Despertar” (Channel 41 News at dawn), which is up 83% to 1.1/5 from 0.6/3, 6 am to 7 am; “Noticias 41” (Channel 41 News) at 6 pm which is up 77% weekdays, 6 pm to 6:30 pm to 4.6/8 from 2.6/5, taking third place in New York’s 6 pm news race away from WCBS/2, which scored 3.9/7 last week; and “Noticias 41” at 11 pm, which scored 3.6/6, up 57% from 2.3/4.

Each New York Nielsen Station Index rating point represents 73,010.6 TV households.